The systems and methods for determining the positions on the surface of the earth for topography or navigation applications have been developed through the centuries, by using technology and calculation resources available in the corresponding times. The great technological advances verified in the last century allowed the introduction of systems using increasingly sophisticated instruments, such as improved theodolites, better precision of clocks and improved knowledge of the small deviations in the rotation of the earth, with special emphasis being given to remote determination techniques, by using electromagnetic waves, particularly in radio bands, infrared rays, and visual contact.
At great distances, for example hundreds to thousands of kilometers, it is no more possible to establish a direct visual contact between a reference base and the targets whose positions are to be determined. New technologies have been developed for distant geographic determinations, both for targets on the earth's surface and in the atmosphere thereof. For mobile targets, it is possible to determine their displacements and conduct the remote navigation thereof.
Between 1950 and 1980 geographic positioning systems were used, employing transmissions of very long radio waves, emitted in very low frequencies (VLF typically defined in the range of 10-30 kHz), or in low frequencies (LF, typically about 100 kHz), by transmitters situated in very well determined geodesic positions, constituting the systems known as Omega and Loran-C, respectively. These networks had worldwide coverage, allowing the approximate positioning for ground, sea and air navigation to be obtained with a precision of 5-15 km, thousands of kilometers away from the fixed transmitters. The precision of the methods employing VLF and LF depends on the time of the day, on the season of the year, and on the solar and geomagnetic activities. Such methods are restricted to localization only, requiring other communication means to transmit the position data to the central stations which process the information for monitoring and navigation. There are several bibliographic references that describe these systems and processes, such as the book “VLF Radio Engineering”, by A. D. Watt, Pergamon Press, Oxford, England, 1967; the articles “The Propagation of low and very low frequency radio-waves”, by T. B. Jones, NATO/AGARD Lecture Series No. 93, USA, 1978, and “Omega Navigation System User's Guide, by N. F. Herbert, document of the US Navy, Washington, D.C., USA, 1978. From the eighties on, new geographic positioning systems have been implanted, employing radio-waves and artificial satellites. One of such systems is based on frequency deviation, known as Doppler effect, of the radio transmissions effected by the target or by the platform whose position is to be determined, and which is caused by the motion of the satellite in relation to the target, as compared to the Doppler effects of transmissions from the bases whose positions on the ground are known. The system uses low orbit satellites and requires processing the composition of the Doppler effects to determine the position of the target. For each determination, some measurements are necessary in different positions of the satellite. Communicating the positions processed in the central base to the user requires the use of an independent communication system. The precisions are of the order of meters, or even less, of the order of centimeters. There are many descriptive references about this localization technique, such as “A review of geodetic and geodynamic satellite Doppler positioning”, by J. Kouba, in “Navigation: Land, Sea, Air & Space,” published by M. Kayton, IEEE Press, New York, USA, 1990, p. 44, and other publications applied to ARGOS satellite system, whose services are sponsored by the French space agency CNES and by the US space agencies NASA and NOAA and described in ARGOS User's Manual, Service Argos Inc., www.argosinc.com, as well as to DORIS satellite system, described for example in the annals of the CNS event called Doris-Days and which took place in Toulouse, France, May 2-3, 2000, in “Impact of the Doris precise orbit determination system on climate change studies”, by P. Vincent et al., 52nd International Astronautic Congress, Toulouse, France, Oct. 1-5, 2001, or in the internet page: http://www.aviso.cls.fr/html/faq/doris-uk.html. Another positioning system which is widely used nowadays is based on triangulations in relation to radio signals from several satellites that are simultaneously present above the horizon, whose ephemeris and positions are well known, besides being constantly updated. The most successful and well known system is the “Global Positioning System”, GPS, from the United States Defense Department and which consists of 27 satellites orbiting with 12-hour translations. The targets are passive, only receiving the signals from the different satellites, processing their positions with ephemeris data of the satellites and with installed programs. The precisions are from meters to several centimeters, even only some centimeters in military applications. For transmitting position data to the external user, it is necessary to employ other independent telecommunication network. There are many bibliographic references about this system, emphasis being given to the book “Guide to GPS Positioning”, by D. Wells, Canadian GPS Association, N. Brunswick, Canada, 1987; “Satellite Data Management in DoD NAVSTAR GPS receivers”, by B. K. Cariveau and K. L. Therkelsen, in “Navigation: Land, Sea, Air & Space”, published by M. Kayton, IEEE Press, New York, USA, 1990, p. 120; “Differential GPS Navigation”, by S. P. Teasey et al. in “Navigation: Land, Sea, Air & Space”, published by M. Kayton, IEEE Press, New York, USA, 1990, p. 131, “The Global Positioning System—GPS Primer”, by The Aerospace Corporation, Los Angeles, Calif., USA, August 1997. The above cited networks and processes that use satellites for geo-positioning are controlled by government agencies or large companies, which employ very sophisticated satellites, such as the systems using the Doppler effect, and highly elaborated satellites, such as NAVSTAR of the GPS constellation. These options require independent systems for communicating geo-positioning and navigation data to controlling or monitoring central stations. The costs of the independent telecommunication services represent an important fraction in the total budget of the operational cost of said systems.
An alternative system of geographic localization on the ground has been proposed, employing radio signals emitted from reference bases and from targets on the ground and retransmitted in the space by ephemeral reflectors, such as meteor ionized tracks in the earth's atmosphere, disclosed in Brazilian Patent PI 9101270-8, filed by Pierre Kaufmann on Mar. 25, 1991 and in the Certificate of Addition C19101270-8, filed on May 17, 2002, extending the reflections of the signals in the space to any type of transceivers carried by aircrafts, balloons or satellites.
However, the invention above requires transmissions in at least two reference bases and does not provide, nor describes, the processes and the steps which are necessary to determine the geographic positions. With such system and process it is not possible to obtain the partial or total determination of the trajectory or orbit of the device which is reflecting or retransmitting signals in the space.